Too Soon
by LuvtoWrite
Summary: Emily Ross has a terminal illness so she and her family are moving to New York so that she can spend her last days surrounded by family.They are traveling in third class on the Titanic and had no realization that Emily's death could be sooner than expecte


Chapter One: A New Day

Whispers in the hall woke Emily from her light sleep in her wooden paneled room. The door was slightly opened and she could see half of her mother's slim form talking anxiously to the doctor that had been assigned to watch over Emily and monitor her state of health. Her mother put a hand to her mouth and her shoulders began to shake. The doctor put his clipboard under his arm and Emily heard him whisper, "I'm sorry." Emily took the covers off of her body and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She had improved so much; mere weeks ago this small task would have taken up much of her energy.

"What's wrong?" she asked when she reached the door. Immediately her mother wiped her eyes and tried to smile, tried to pretend like she hadn't just been crying.

"Wh…what are you doing out of bed, dear?" her mother asked hoarsely. Emily's green eyes stared at her mother intensely.

"What did he tell you, mother?" she whispered. The doctor, whom Emily and her older brother, Harlan, had grown to call Mr. Rumplestilskin, said stiffly, "You need your rest, young lady." She pushed the hand he had placed on her shoulder away.

"What did he tell you?" she asked again, more fiercely this time. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Bailey, Daniel, and Harlan peeking out from their mother's room. Her mother began to cry again much to Emily's horror. She hated seeing her mother like this.

"Mum!" she said loudly, taking her mother by her shoulders.

"Young lady, that's quite enough!" the doctor commanded. Emily ignored him and found her own eyes filling with tears.

"Mum, what's wrong?" she asked desperately. Her mother looked at a point directly past Emily's shoulder and whispered something so quietly that Emily almost didn't hear.

"He said…that nothing anybody does will help you. He said…he said that you are going to die." The breath caught in Emily's chest. She saw Harlan burst angrily from the room and yell something she couldn't understand. She saw Daniel looking scared and Bailey looking confused. She heard the doctor's clipboard clatter to the ground beneath her feet. Only one thing registered in her mind.

"…you are going to die."

"Emily! Emily, please! Wake up!"

Someone was shaking her violently, willing her to wake from her slumber. Emily's eyes flew open and she saw Harlan's worried face staring at her in concern. Her heart was beating abnormally fast and as she raised herself to a sitting place on her bed, she found her hands were shaking.

"What happened?" she asked her brother who had released her and walked over to sit on a chair next to her bed. Harlan looked at her, still looking worried.

"Are you alright?" he asked. Emily nodded before repeating the question.

"You were screaming," was the reply. "and you were kicking the sheets everywhere. It was like back when-" Harlan didn't finish. Emily knew the reason why; neither of them liked to remember when she used to have anxiety attacks when she was still being visited from the doctor. She pushed the damp covers off of her and walked over to the mirror hanging on the wall. It was one of the only things left in the small room. Most everything else had been packed away as the family was leaving the next day for New York.

"I'm sorry," she said as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her curly red hair was tangled and her freckles were standing out more than ever because of the whiteness of her face.

"I was dreaming. It's always the same dream. The one when Rumplestilskin told mother…when we found out…" her voice trailed away as she turned away from the mirror to look back at Harlan. He wasn't looking at her directly but nodded.

"Let's not talk about that. We need to wake Bailey and Daniel up…that is if you haven't already done that," he said with a would be reassuring smile. Emily however, could see that he was still clearly worried. She took the remaining four steps and knelt down next to him.

"Come on, Har, we've gotten over it. We've accepted it," she said, grasping his hand. He looked down at her and his eyes were blinking rapidly.

"I don't want you to die," he whispered, and Emily could hear the fear in his voice. Harlan was never afraid of anything but talking about the day when Emily would die always got him shaken up. Emily smiled sadly up at him.

"I don't want to die either. But we have a day ahead of us in which I'm going to be alive. Let's not ruin it with thoughts of death, shall we?" Harlan wiped his eyes embarrassedly and replied, "Right. I'll go get Daniel. Mum's in the kitchen making breakfast." Emily watched him leave the room and for a brief moment wished he hadn't left her side. He was her rock, her source of comfort and right now she could have used more of that. However, she shook her head clear and walked over to Bailey's bed where she was still soundly sleeping. It was common knowledge in the family that Bailey was the heaviest sleeper out of all of them. It took several minutes of Emily saying, "Bailey, wake up," before the seven year old yawned sleepily.

"Time to get up," Emily said, kissing the top of her sisters forehead.

"But I'm still tired," Bailey complained, although she now looked wide awake. Emily laughed and pulled the covers off her sister.

"So am I, but it's time to start a new day. We're going to see Mr. Smith today, remember?" she said as she walked over to the closet to lay out Bailey's clothes for the day. Bailey sat up on her knees in the bed and asked crossly with her head tilted to one side, "Why do we gotta see Mr. Smith? All we do is go see Mr. Smith!" Emily brought the clothes back to the bed and replied, "Because Mr. Smith is the only reason we're going to begin the voyage to New York tomorrow and mother has to talk with him." It was hard coming up with a good reason why they were going to see the man. Emily herself couldn't see much point in the continuous visiting with the man as her mother had already gotten her maid's outfit and tickets.

Mr. Smith and Charlene Ross, Emily's mother, had been friends since before Emily could remember. After the news about Emily's condition, Charlene had made the decision to move to America where most of her family was; nothing was left for them in England anymore. She had talked to Mr. Smith and he had agreed to let her and her four children have a room in third class on the ship he was captaining: the _Titanic_. Charlene was also to be a stewardess and help clean the first class rooms as well as serve the passengers needs. This was how Emily and Harlan found themselves being informed the week before last that they were to be leaving England and that they and their siblings needed to start packing. Emily was glad to be leaving England. It wasn't her home and never would be; originally, Emily and her family had been from Scotland but had moved to England because there was talk of a doctor who might be able to help Emily. Needless to say, there was no such doctor.

"Emily and Bailey, come down for breakfast!" Charlene's voice came from downstairs.

"Come on, we can get dressed after breakfast," Emily said to Bailey, holding out her hand for her sister to take. They made their way down the stairs and into the kitchen where Harlan, Daniel, and their mother already sat at the table.

"Good morning, mum," Emily said kissing her mother on the cheek.

"Morning, dear," she replied with a smile showing off two dimples in either side of her lips. Emily had always envied her mother's beauty. She had the same hair as Harlan's: blonde and wavy, not curly like Emily's. She had gotten her hair from her father.

"Harlan tells me you were screaming when you woke up," Charlene said as she grabbed a roll from a wooden basket in the middle of the table. Daniel raised his eyebrows.

"Screaming? Isn't that what-" he began but Emily kicked him under the table and shot a glare at Harlan who pretended not to see.

"I wasn't screaming," she lied, also taking a roll. Harlan now looked up at her.

"Don't you lie to her," he said in a dangerous voice. Emily bit her lip as she tried not to look at her mother.

"It was just a nightmare," she said quietly.

"Just a nightmare," Charlene repeated.

"Yes! It…I don't see what the problem is! You can't say you've never woken up screaming," Emily stated in protest.

"The problem, Emily, is that you were waking up screaming during the time you were ill three months-" Emily slammed down her fork and glowered at her mother.

"I'm not sick, mother! There's nothing wrong with me!" she shouted angrily before storming out of the kitchen and out the front door. She wasn't planning on going anywhere other than the front porch but she needed to get out of that house. Nothing good, it seemed, had ever come out of that house and today was proving no different. She sat on the porch steps, watching her neighbors stroll by and waving listlessly back to anyone who waved at her. The front door opened and Daniel came to sit next to her.

"Mum's really upset," he said when she said nothing to acknowledge his presence.

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" she asked turning to look at Daniel.

"Well, no. But I thought you should know. You worry her, ya know?" he replied unperturbedly.

"I _know _I do, Daniel! Which is the exact reason I didn't want Harlan to tell her!" she said loudly. Daniel still didn't seem to be taking her anger to heart.

"Harlan's worried about you to. He cries sometimes. Don't tell him I said that though," he said quickly with a nervous glance at Emily. She laughed slightly.

"I won't," she said, ruffling the eleven year old's hair, her rage at the time forgotten.

"I told you not to do that! It's messing up my hair!" Daniel squawked, trying to slap her hand away. Emily laughed in honest this time.

"That's the point, featherbrain!" she said before beginning to tickle him. Daniel's screams of laughter must've reached the inside of the house because a window opened from the second story and Harlan's voice called, "Mum says to get dressed. We'll be leaving for Mr. Smith's soon." In unison Daniel and Emily stood up and walked into the house. After Emily had pulled her corset on, she realized someone was going to need to tighten it. Slowly, she walked into her mother's room and rapped once on the door. Her mother looked up at the sound and said awkwardly, "Yes?" Emily walked into the room and gestured towards the corset. Charlene took the hint and began pulling the strings to make it tighter.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled," Emily said quietly. "I shouldn't have stormed off either."

"I forgive you. I'm sorry too. I didn't need to remind…that is to say…" she stopped pulling the corset strings and Emily turned back around and hugged her mother. They stood like this for several minutes before they pulled away.

"I'm sorry I'm doing this to you," Emily whispered, her lip quivering.

"Emmy," Charlene said consolingly, "Emmy, I'm not angry with you. Don't you ever think that!" Emily burst into tears as her mother gave her another hug.

"I love you, Mum," she whispered.

"I love you too."


End file.
